“Do all these skins come from the ranches of our own country?” he inquired one day when, from the window, he saw a train of heavily laden freight cars come rolling into the yard. “Why, I shouldn’t think there would be a single live animal left in America.”
“There wouldn’t,” replied the boss good-naturedly. “No, indeed. Only a small part of the hides tanned here and at the Elmwood tanneries come from our ranches. The United States cannot begin to produce hides enough to fill the demand. Therefore we import a great many from abroad as well as from South America. When a shipment arrives the skins are sorted: the cowhides and those to be tanned in chrome coming here, and the heavy skins and those to be tanned in oak or hemlock being sent on to Elmwood, where all the sole leather is made. The hides vary in weight, ranging from twenty-five to sixty pounds. There are skins of steers, horses, buffaloes, walrus, bulls, and oxen. The strongest and most perfect ones are made into belting to run the machinery of factories. Leather for this purpose, as you can easily see, must be of equal strength in every part to withstand the great strain put upon it. Some factories turn out belting and nothing else. Other heavy hides are tanned into sole leather for harnesses, bags, trunks, and the soles of shoes. Then there are lots of hides which are not perfect. These are the skins of branded cattle and steers. You know, of course, that on many of the ranches the stock is branded so that it can be easily identified in case it is lost. These branded hides have flaws or thin places in them and are not so valuable in consequence.”
“I can see that,” assented Peter. “What is done with such leather?”
“Well, it is usually tanned in oak, or in a blend of oak and hemlock known as union tan, and is sold for purposes where less strength will be demanded of it than if it were made into belting.”
Peter nodded.
“Oh, there are lots of interesting things to learn about hides. Why, you wouldn’t believe, now would you, that the way the animals live would make a difference in the weight of their skins? Yet it is so. Cattle raised in stalls and supplied regularly with good food have far better hides than those that range the fields and are forced to forage for the scant rations found there. Wild cattle, on the other hand, have much tougher hides than do domesticated animals.”
“It’s curious, isn’t it?” replied Peter.
“Yes, it is,” the foreman answered. “Two factors always go hand in hand in the making of a fine leather. One is the quality of the hide itself; and the other is the way in which it is tanned. For the tanning liquid, you know, reacts on the fibres of the skin in such a way that the material becomes tougher, closer grained, and more pliable. Here again you are back to the importance of the beamhouse processes.”
All these items of information Peter and Nat added to their accumulating fund. Through the long summer they worked hard, classifying all they learned and collecting more as one gathers up snow by rolling a snowball.
Then came the fall, with its frosts of ever increasing heaviness. The park flowers drooped; baseball failed to drive the cold from chilled fingers; and lunching in the open had to be abandoned. It was then that notices were posted in all the tanneries saying that at noon on a certain day the president of the Coddington Company desired to meet his men in the vacant room of Factory 2.